1. What led you to writing resumes? Do you have a background that made you an ideal fit for the industry?
A combination of the desire to help people to enhance their careers with my daily work and my talent to draft, craft and write. Yes, I would consider my background ideal. I have practiced law for several years, dealt with various employment issues, and screened loads of resumes when running my own law office. I also keep my knowledge of the HR and Recruiter industry up-to-date and hold a Master Certificate in Human Resource Management from Villanova University.
2. How long have you been in the industry? Would you recommend it to others? Why?
I have been around in the employment and recruiting business for a while now. However, I only “dared” to make resume writing and career coaching my full-time profession in 2012. I would recommend it to people who a) can get genuinely excited about helping other people and b) are willing to do a lot of marketing. And I really mean a lot of marketing. I probably spend nowadays at least twice as much time on marketing than I did when I was running my own law office!
3. What is the single best tool you recommend for building client relations? Building your business? Improve efficiency?
Running a successful business will always require the right mix of several actions. So I am not too big of a fan of singling out any tool. But if I have to, the single best tool for building client relations, building your business and improving efficiency is great communication skills vis-à-vis your clients. I for instance make it pretty clear that hiring a resume writer does not mean that the client can sit back now, relax and wait for their finished product. A good final product will depend on good teamwork between the resume writer and the client.
4. If you could share one learning experience/great lesson, what would it be?
Get out of your ivory tower. That goes for both: aspiring resume writers and job applicants. You are going to make your life so much easier if you go out there and meet people face-to-face.
5. Looking back, what would you have done differently? Done the same?
Hmh, I guess not too much. I am a fan of jumping into cold water, so I think it is better to get started and adjust along the way instead of planning or contemplating over and over again. And I would join at least one professional resume writers’ association right from the start again.
6. What advice would you give someone just entering the resume-writing industry?
Writing the resume and communicating with your clients are obviously necessary key skills. However, if you are just starting, and you don’t know anything about the hiring part of the industry (how recruiters and hiring authorities work), I would advise to get some exposure to this field, e.g. shadow a recruiter for a week, talk to as many as you can, etc. Only once you have actually seen how brutally fast a candidate might get dismissed over the tiniest of the tiniest detail, you know what kind of product you actually have to deliver!
7. How do you see our industry transforming over the next 12 months? 5 years? What do you think resume writers need to know in order to survive?
As a trend-barometer I speak a lot to recruiters, and from their current feedback I don’t really see a transformation over the next 12 months. For the next 5 years: I think that within the next 5 years professional LinkedIn-Profiles or Profiles on new platforms will become even more important.
